The invention relates to a method and a device for the single- or multistage compression of a gas-phase medium, particularly hydrogen or natural gas, by means of at least one piston compressor, wherein the medium may have a water content up to total saturation with water.
Species-related compression methods and devices are known sufficiently well from the prior art. Such methods and devices are used for example for compressing gas-phase hydrogen or natural gas. In this context, until now the problem that has presented itself has been that the hydrogen to be compressed inevitably contains water by virtue of the method of its production—by electrolysis for example. Previously, this had to be removed completely before proceeding with the actual compression, because in the compressors of the related art, particularly piston compressors, the compressor valves would be damaged by water droplets or corrosion. For this reason, until now it has been necessary to provide fairly complicated devices or systems for separating the water.
In the case of hydrogen production by electrolysis, for example, molecular sieves are used. However, these need energy because they have to be heated cyclically, and they also consume a portion of the valuable hydrogen, which is used as the purge gas for regenerating the molecular sieve. The necessary separation of the water thus makes hydrogen generation more expensive. Furthermore, devices of such kind require a certain degree of maintenance, which further raises the cost of generating hydrogen.
The same problems are also encountered when compressing other media, such as natural gas for example, which must be compressed for use in refueling vehicles.
The object of the present invention is to suggest a species-related method and a species-related device for compressing a gas-phase medium that avoid the disadvantages outlined in the preceding.